Space News Archive - May 12, 2012
The crew of the French–Italian Concordia research base in the Antarctic saw their last rays of Sun for over four months last weekend. Near the South Pole, the outpost will now continue its research and run self-sufficiently in darkness until September.
Meteorite fragments were recently scattered around Sutter’s Mill in California. This is the same region where the first gold nugget was found that sparked the Gold Rush in 1848. S
Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft - NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon dioxide - has left its nest at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and has arrived at its integration and test site in Gilbert, Ariz.
In England it is known as the "Plough," in Germany the "Great Cart," and in Malaysia the "Seven Ploughs." Since humanity first turned its eyes skyward, the seven northern hemisphere stars that compose the "Big Dipper" have been a welcome and familiar introduction to the heavens.
Researchers working at the University of Bonn in Germany have used computer simulations to discover the first evidence that the way in which stars form depends upon the conditions of their birth environments.
